For students who find university too abstract or college too concrete, a hybrid degree may be the answer. Articulation agreements allow students to start at one institution and transfer to the other.
Michael Whalen is vice-president of enrolment at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, N.S. The Mount has agreements with the Nova Scotia Community College linking their business degree, bachelor of tourism and hospitality management and the bachelor of child and youth studies to the college. NSCC grads get two years’ of credit toward a Mount degree. He said articulation attracts students for academic and financial reasons.
“There are some (students) who are attracted to the much lower tuition fees at community colleges, so they make a very conscious decision that they can do two years there for half the price (of university),” Whalen said. “Some weren’t as academically oriented as others in high school, went to community college and found a niche (and transferred to university).”
Saint Mary’s University in Halifax is about to announce its first articulation agreement with NSCC. Esther Enns, dean of arts, said it will allow students who have finished a diploma at NSCC to transfer a block of credits into a BA at SMU.
“What generally happens in articulation agreements is that there’s a course-to-course equivalency established,” Enns explained. “What we’ve done is looked at it holistically.”
A college student’s “learning outcome” is assessed and compared to university students and “block transferred” to SMU to get a one-year head start. “It gives students mobility between institutions,” Enns says. “What we’re doing is taking it a step further.”
Joan McArthur-Blair, president of NSCC, says it’s about recognizing the intrinsic value of all education.
“The idea of a learner never having to cycle back, never having to start their knowledge journey again, is critically important,” she said. Students can follow their passion and if they decide they want something different, be able to apply the learning they’ve already done.
McArthur-Blair doesn’t see a lot of students starting at college with the intention of articulating. “I think what happens is when people are in college, a certain percentage think, ‘I want more of this’ or a different piece of this,” she said, noting it goes both ways. “University students, particularly in the arts, have this body of knowledge and now they want to be able to apply it in a particular setting.”
